Looking Into The Space and Menu at David Myers’ Hinoki & the Bird, Opening Tomorrow in Century City

We’re not alone in saying that David Myers’ Sona long held the top spot in our list of favorite L.A. restaurants. In fact, the Michelin inspectors who awarded it one star would be the first to agree (if they were still speaking to us). Elegant and electrifying, the chef merged his French training with a passion for Japanese kaiseki, flexing his tweezer fingers over internationally-fused tasting menus based on exotic micro-greens and fruits, chai foams and grains of paradise sabayon, subcontinental spices, and Gallic mainstays with Asian accents.

The restaurant shuttered in the spring of 2010 as local fine-dining wheezed, but Myers promised to bring Sona back the next year in a Hollywood space. That is yet to happen. Instead, the chef concentrated on Comme Ca, Pizza Ortica, and the opening of Sola in Tokyo, while gastropubs proliferated to L.A.’s stressed seams. Tomorrow, some turf portends to be taken back, as Myers opens Hinoki & The Bird with former Sona chef de cuisine Kuniko Yagi heading the kitchen.

Housed in a sky-scraping condo complex in Century City, Hinoki & The Bird is layered in woods both light and dark; a snug, atmospheric roadhouse tavern with an al fresco patio, pew-style booths, an open kitchen fronted by a stack of shelves, and blasts of color from sparse, striking flower arrangements.

The menu, as seen below, may not be a full-trumpeted return to white tablecloths and high-priced tasting menus, but it does mark the return of Myers’ globally-inspired cuisine to the Boston-born chef’s adopted hometown.

Backed by a strong cocktail program from Milk & Honey’s Sam Ross, dishes include classic Myers-style combinations of the familiar and alluring, like scallops with grapefruit and lime leaf and calamari with ajwain-tomato jam, in addition to au currant twists like chili crab toast with coriander and spicy cucumber, house-cured pickles, green curry lobster rolls, and duck leg carbonara. The menu also includes vegetable plates and simply grilled selections like sambal skate wing, miso-marinated steak, and Maine lobster.

Overall, an enticing prospect of Asian-influenced dining with a less formal bent from one of our favorite fine-dining chefs. Check out Hinoki & The Bird’s full dinner and cocktail menus below and take a look at the space in our slide show, prior to the restaurant’s opening tomorrow evening at 5:30 P.M.